Even a good quality stationary belt sander will not allow you to maintain required flatness. Find a shop with a surface grinder or send it to someone who has one.
Well, as far as the shim goes, the guy with the water jet is simply amazing! I couldn't find anyone else to deal with this so he took a crack at it. I watched him chuck this up on his lathe and using a dial indicator he determined that is was only flat to .0005". Then, to my horror, he used a hand grinder on it. When he was finished, I thought it was trashed. It had a wavy pattern in it you could feel. Funny thing was, it was a uniform wavy pattern. Kind of like an 8 point star. He then took it to a table sander and ground it by hand using the uniform wavy pattern to make sure he kept it even. He eventually brought it down to where the wavy pattern was gone and when he was finished, it was flatter than original. I measured it every way I could and the caliper would never deviate from 5.61mm. That was using his caliper. When I got home mine showed exactly the same. I can't get ANY shim to measure as flat as he made that. You can see what's left of the wavy pattern at the bottom left of every tooth. Those little divots don't matter because they are on the tooth and have no affect on shimming. He then put the LHS cover bearing race in the lathe and used some emery cloth on it to knock off .0001". It now slips into the side cover perfectly with no play. Better than the hand grind job I tried to do. So now that I have shims galore for all 4 points in this gearbox, you would think I should be set to go. Read on... I wrote this just before the next post.... Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Somebody call the men in the white coats. I'm ready to be put away. They'll find me sitting amongst the pile of Ferrari parts twiddling my lower lip and making motor boat sounds. There will be gear paint graffiti all over the walls cursing Enzo and his cohorts. This process defies all logic. I've now reduced the pinion shim from 2.4 to 1.6mm. The drive side pictures below show a somewhat better pattern with the pinion set at about 1.9mm (that's the first pic) but it's still a little too much towards the toe. So I moved the pinion more and more and although the pattern started to center, it took on more of a "knife sharpening" affect (second pic) where the pattern barely shows anything except on the extreme face edge of the tooth. You would think that reducing backlash would correct this but it doesn't. I can take the backlash to .001" and it still is like these gears are barely touching each other. What's even more disturbing is the coast side. It never seems to move at all! It is still way out on the heel side even with the pinion shim at 1.6mm - WTF!!!?!?!? Why doesn't it change when the drive side pattern changes?? I've just blown another entire Saturday assembling and disassembling this gear box another 7 or 8 times. I'm sick and tired of this F'ing F car and it's F'ing F gearbox. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
wow scott, you make great progress so no need to call the men in the white coats. they are not able to help you fixing this problem. and when this problem is solved you don´t need those white coats men anymore . also we still need you here for all info you give us for this job this looks now meanwhile much much better. as I see it now the backlash is to large and also the pinion has to move more to the front again. even you have only 0.001 ( in mm it is a little more than 2/100 ) and seems ok. but where or at what part of the diff you meassured this backlash? or you meassured the backlash at the pinion? that is wrong ! ! outside of the gears? outside the diff housing? I never meassured this backlash with a gauge. I only looked if there is a very little play between the pinion and the crown, had then a look at the pattern and adjusted again or put all together. you may turn the complete crown 360 ° to see if this backlash is all over the same. so try to reduce the backlash again a little and see how the pattern will change on both sides. then reduce again the shim ( no. 21 ) and also of course the shim no. 8 of the pinion shaft so that this shaft is coming more to the front. may be 2/10 mm or 3/10 mm? don´t give up ! ! ! ! ! it is simple mechanical logical technic and now you have so much experience meanwhile that it would be a shame to give up. you are nearly finished. with adjusting all others doing such a gearbox job right had and have the same problem. sure it is a f...king job to do because of wasting so much time and it still is not ok. but later when all is finished again you will enjoy every mile you drive much more than before. also you may think how much money you saved of doing this all by yourself and you know it is done right then. only think over you would have done this by an F garage. would pay a lot of money and still not know if it is really done right or not. you are doing with computers scott. so there you also have problems. but there you not see anything, even the computers are logical. so often those white coat men could pick up me when I have trouble with those computers. but until now I always fixed them. even it takes nights and days this with reducing the thickness of the shim no. 8 has been done very good. gradulation !
A Precious few go to this level of gear set up you are doing, those that have.... know exactly what you are going through and respect it! There is only one "Right", the list of "Close Enough's" is endless. Keep plugging away, the Right pattern's will eventually show themselves. Document each step in notes and pictures so you can look back where you started and where you have come to, with how what changes brought you there. I find this helps a great deal when I get in old basket case 275 and 330 boxes in pieces.
Thanks for all the words of encouragement. I'll try more today. It's hard to keep going without scratching my head and wondering why I'm so far out of spec with what F offers for shimming: Pinion head 2.0-3.0mm I'm currently at 1.6 and need to go less Pinion shaft 6.0-7.0mm I'm currently at 5.6 and need to go less Funny thing is, now that I've moved the pinion back that much, the diff shims are now back within spec range. Now I'm wondering if that Capristo side cover bearing race hole is really cut too deep or if the pinion was just too far aft.
Romano, I'm measuring backlash on the heel side of the crown gear. I cannot reduce backlash anymore or the gears will bind.
ok scott, but when you move the pinion to the front the backlash will increase again and so you can decrease by shiming the diff. this is what I wanted to say. the backlash with those about 0.001 ( 0,02 mm ) seems a little less. those who manufactured my CP told me a backlash of about 0,04 to 0,05 mm would be ok. otherwise it could get problems when getting warm.
Hi Dave. I'm honored to have an F God checking up on me. Thank you. I've got more pics than I've posted plus I started this log page when I started moving the pinion. Those original numbers provide a perfect preload for both the pinion and and diff. So when I change one, I change the corresponding one exactly the same to retain preload. It's amazing how just a couple of hundredths of a mm can affect preload. Image Unavailable, Please Login
This is madness but I'm going to keep moving the pinion forward. One more day of this and I may need drugs, therapy, locked up, or all of the above.
hey scott, you will be lucky when all is done. then you can say you are the only one specialist in TR gearboxes on hawaii and when it is all fine again your drugs are fuel and oil odor, therapy is driving, locked up in a TR, so you have all then at the same time
Curiosity Question - I was just looking over all the pics in this thread and I noticed Melvoks gearbox case. The hole for the LHS cover is HUGE! Did they make it much larger on a 512TR? Can someone post a pic of the LHS cover on its own from a 512TR?
the LHS cover from TR87 and 90 is equal, but the cover for the 512TR and 512 M is also equal but not the same as from the TR. the shims for the right side are all equal. strange ! ! ! and I wonder again in the PC the gearbox cases from the 87 and 90 TR are equal and from the 512 TR and 512 M so strange may be steve or dave knows some more what are the differences? or someone else perhaps knows?
Don't have a pic of the 512 LH side diff cover, but the 512TR SPC figure shows that they just made it a bigger diameter: Ferrari 512TR Parts : Table 30 - GEARBOX - MOUNTING AND COVERS Now the really weird thing is that every pic of a TR gearbox that I have, and the figures in the TR WSM, look like your TR gearbox (small diameter LH side cover); HOWEVER, the figures in the 1987 (Table 30) and 1990 (Table 31) TR SPC both physically show the 512TR gearbox housing (with the bigger hole) and the larger diameter 512TR LH side cover (but the PNs are TR, not 512TR) -- bizarre!
Here's the latest. The drive side pattern is now starting to move too far towards the heel. Why can't I get it to swipe the center of the tooth?? All I get is this riding on the edge effect. Once again, I reduce the backlash to minimum and the pattern doesn't change. Also, the coast side is still on the heel. Why it never moves is baffling. Sorry for the bad painting job on the coast side. The pattern is on the extreme face and heel. Something seems desperately wrong. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Dumb question..are you 100% sure you have everything assembled correctly on the pinion shaft? All other shims, bearings etc are in place and nut is torqued each time it's checked? Somthing is really off here causing you tremendous grief!! Take a step back and go through everything step by step, hell take a couple of days off and go back to it with a clear head.
Hi Howie, Yeah I'm sure. I'm going to take a step back by reassembling with the original shim specs and see what I get.
That's a very good idea. Don't let it get to you. Keep going but take it slow, and try to have a bit of fun with it. And thank your stars your not in a shop enviroment with the boss and the customer breathing down your neck..
Good point. The only one breathing down my neck is the guy who has the car being stored on his property. He wants it gone but he's being pretty cool about it. He is an ASE certified tech so he appreciates what I'm doing.
Well I'm not crazy. I assembled it with the original shim sizes and voila, original pattern. In fact, I ADDED .15mm to the original pinion shim. The pattern looks....maybe a little better than original?? Is it possible I'm going the wrong direction??? Should the pinion be moving aft instead of forward??? At this point, there's only one way to find out. Move it. If you want to know what the original pattern looks like, refer to page 1 of this thread. F'ing F's and their F'ing gearbox and their F'ing diff's and their F'ing shims and their F'ing Italian destruction manual...F'ing F'ers.....This is soooo F'd up...F THIS!...Ok, I feel better now.
When viewing the image from the WSM below, am I looking at the drive side or the coast side of the crown gear?? I've assumed all along it was the drive side. Now I believe it's the coast side. That means that I'm going the wrong direction and the pinion needs to move aft, not forward. Image Unavailable, Please Login
good question scott, I think it is the drive side. this you may see when you have a look on your first picture. you put the pinion to the front and the pattern was getting better. why now the pattern on the coast side is not changing I really don´t know. if the WSM would show the coast side why then the pattern was getting better by moving the pinion to the front? that would make no sense could you post please a picture of the colored pinion to see where the pattern is there.
